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#2101 2025-06-13 21:44:04

Void
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Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,496

Re: Starship is Go...

Here is some interesting blab: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … i-AA1AGkg7

Raptor 3 and Vast as topics, Rocket Lab also.

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Last edited by Void (2025-06-13 21:56:22)


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#2102 2025-06-19 08:18:14

tahanson43206
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Re: Starship is Go...

This post is about No Go ... We don't have a topic for Starship No Go.

We have ** lots ** of topics with Starship in the title.

Not ONE is about Starship No Go ...

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/06/s … uth-texas/

https://www.theverge.com/news/689901/sp … -fire-test

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/spa … aunch-site

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71AwkBt3_ts

I sure hope the test stand was not too severely impacted.

However, NASASpaceflight seems to think damage might be significant

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SpaceX Starship 36 Explodes During Flight 10 Testing at Starbase
NASASpaceflight

hours ago 
 
3 products
While preparing for a 6-engine static fire test as part of its pre-flight test campaign, SpaceX's Ship 36 experienced an anomaly, resulting in destruction of the vehicle and significant damage to the Massey's rocket test site in Starbase, TX. The test site is approximately 5 miles away from the Starship production facility, and roughly 9 miles from the Brownsville city limits. Per a statement from SpaceX, all personnel are safe and accounted for

Two days earlier we had ** this ** report:

Is This the Fastest Turnaround Yet? | Starbase Update
NASASpaceflight

1.35M subscribers 
109K views  2 days ago  6 products

Starship Flight 10 is almost here—and it’s happening faster than expected!

SpaceX is moving full throttle at Starbase, with Ship 36 nearly ready, Booster 16 cleared for flig …

Live chat replay
See what others said about this video while it was live.

A number of comments were along the lines of .... "too fast"

(th)

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#2103 2025-06-19 10:21:03

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
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Re: Starship is Go...

This from today's AIAA "Daily Launch" email newsletter:

-----   
article image   
CBS News
SpaceX Starship upper stage explodes during ramp-up to expected engine test
A SpaceX Starship upper stage exploded in a spectacular conflagration during ramp-up to an expected engine test firing at the company's Starbase manufacturing facility on the Texas Gulf Coast late Wednesday, destroying the rocket in what appears to be a major setback for the Super Heavy-Starship vehicle Elon Musk says is critical to the company's future. Video from LabPadre, a company that monitors SpaceX activities at Starbase, showed the Starship suddenly exploding in a huge fireball just after 11 p.m. CDT, 10 to 15 minutes before the anticipated engine test firing, sending flaming debris shooting away into the overnight sky from a churning fireball that engulfed the test stand.
----- 

It's not clear from this that any of the engines were even running. 

GW

PS -- After looking at more reports plus a video of the explosion,  I can say for sure that no engines were running.  I can say it is likely the Starship upper stage exploded first,  followed a second or two later by the booster exploding.  There are a lot of possible fault trails,  but it would appear on the surface that those that might be responsible for this explosion lead to the vehicle itself,  not to its engines.

Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-06-19 10:40:56)


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"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#2104 2025-06-19 13:08:18

kbd512
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Re: Starship is Go...

GW,

There was no booster underneath the Starship that exploded.  It was a Starship sitting on a test stand by itself, not the Super Heavy booster, loading propellant into its tanks.  The explosion appeared to start near the nose of the Starship where the header tanks are located, and it happened live on-air, on the NASA Space Flight channel.  If whatever you watched showed a booster stage underneath it, then that was AI-generated nonsense.

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#2105 2025-06-19 20:32:16

Void
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Re: Starship is Go...

We should have a concern for bad actors in all of this, as the Starships started to blow up when the Musk Hate showed up.

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#2106 2025-06-19 23:49:25

GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...

Getting accurate reports about this is not as easy as it should be.  Some of the things I read early on said it was Starship stacked atop a Superheavy.  I did see two explosions about a second or two apart.  The video quality was too low to properly identify what blew up.  Now most of the reports say it was Starship only,  no booster.  That's a change in the reporting in only 1 day. 

I guess it doesn't matter.  This time it was not an engine failure,  because none of them were running.  I do note that every Starship flown since they went to version 2 has failed in some way.  The only 2 or 3 that actually made it down to the Indian Ocean were version 1. Making the changes clearly has not turned out so well. 

Now a tweet has surfaced from Musk saying it was most likely a bursting inert gas container that triggered the event.  I suppose that could be true.  But it sure is early for someone to be saying anything about cause. 

GW


GW Johnson
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#2107 2025-06-20 11:28:07

kbd512
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Re: Starship is Go...

GW,

If getting accurate reports on a giant moon rocket that blew up on live television here in America is more difficult than it ought to be, imagine how difficult it might be to get accurate reports on far more complex geopolitical topics.

Most of the video you're watching, whether on TV or online, is actually slow-motion footage of what happened, which is why there appears to be a brief delay between the initial and primary / major explosion.  The clip on Scott Manley's YouTube channel that came directly from the NASA Space Flight TV channel shows the explosion in real time at least once, and that happened in almost the blink of an eye.

Start watching this video from Scott Manley at the 1:05 (one minute, five seconds into the video) time marker:
SpaceX's Latest Starship Explodes During Ground Test

The two NSF Channel narrators are casually talking with each other about the particulars of the test, the screen goes white in less than a second, and then one of them screams, "Whoa!  Whoa!  What!?  No!".

You're correct when you state that this was NOT an engine failure.  No engines were running at the time of the explosion, because propellant was being loaded into Starship 36 (a V2 variant of Starship) on a test stand.  No Super Heavy booster or Raptor engine was involved in this explosion.

The source of the initial explosion was either the header tanks or the COPVs sitting right next to the header tanks inside the Starship, which Scott Manley has detailed footage of, later on in the same video I linked to above.  Whatever initially "let go" inside of Starship 36 was powerful enough to open up the top half of the vehicle like an empty beer can, followed almost immediately by an explosion of the LOX and LCH4 in the primary propellant tanks.  Those troublesome COPVs are under something like 400 to 500 bars of pressure, so I'm thinking that was sufficient overpressure, most likely accompanied by COPV shrapnel, to rupture the propellant tanks inside Starship and ignite the LOX/LCH4 vapors.

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#2108 2025-06-20 12:56:55

GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...

I thought Scott Manley did a good job in that link,  primarily saying "we don't know,  must wait and see".   He did raise some issues with the header tank piping causing the initial splitting-open on the heat shield side.  That slow-motion he has is better than anything else I've seen up to now. 

It shows cold gas erupting through the split opening up through the heat shield,  splitting the thing open in the cargo bay zone before ever there is any combustion.  That's a rather important clue!  And I don't know what it means,  either.  And right now,  I doubt even SpaceX's team knows.  And rightly so. 

"Build it,  break it,  build another" only works if you don't make very many changes from one build to the next.  Too many things changed between versions 1 and 2 of the Starship upper stage.  None of the 2's has been at all successful yet,  while some of the 1's were.  I think that outcome makes clear that too many changes were made jumping from 1 to 2,  something only easily recognizable after-the-fact.  There's no point to "you should have known better" blame games.  No one could know better,  especially without any "old hands" on the staff to provide any "hard-knocks" wisdom to a crew of newbies.  Newbies being pushed to do it too fast by the head honcho (that being Musk,  who as both Bob Clark and I have both previously pointed out,  is not a qualified engineer in any sense of that word).

Myself,  I would not finish ship 37 (a version 2),  I'd build another version 1,  just putting the revised heat shield and the current version 2 Raptor engines in it.  If that should actually fly all the way to an ocean landing,  then you know that the trouble lies in the other version 2 changes,  and more likely among those made trying to cut down inert weight.  You inevitably lose structural margins when you do that. 

We also did not see as many upper stage engine problems with Starship version 1 (unlike with the booster),  whether it was Raptor version 1 or 2.  Therefore I suspect not so much the engines themselves,  as I suspect the feed plumbing in the vehicle bringing propellants to them.  Yes,  the engines were probably too vulnerable to the unanticipatedly-intense engine bay fires from leaks.  Leaks less likely at the power heads of the engines themselves,  and more likely in the supply plumbing and maybe the tankage in the vehicle design,  independent of which version of the engines was being flown.  Just wrap that stuff up against the heat of the leak fires.  Find and fix that first,  and only then try to reduce inert weights without screwing up that prior gain.

500 bars is about 7250 psi.  That's high enough to be quite challenging,  but it is something attainable.  I'm not sure that anything other than SS304/304L has the plastic strain capability to handle system-type problems at pressures like that.  That stuff will stretch almost an order of magnitude further before failing,  than any other inert gas container material candidate,  that I can think of.

Right now,  rectifying a failure mode is way more important than saving inert weight.  I think most other "old hands" would agree with me about that.

GW

PS -- and even after saying all of that,  I still feel (too low a frequency to hear) some sort of thrust/pressure oscillation in the Raptors they are testing at McGregor,  including the new Raptor 3's.  They haven't recognized that risk factor yet,  much less fixed it. So there still are engine problems to fix,  as well.

Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-06-20 13:01:28)


GW Johnson
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#2109 2025-06-21 10:15:43

Void
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Re: Starship is Go...

I am not trying to gloss over reality: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ajaxserp=0  Quote:

Elon Musk just declared: 42-Engine Solution Will DESTROY Competition...
YouTube
Future Space
12 views
45

The item I am most interested in is the claim that with 42 engines, Starship will only need 3 trips to LEO to go to Mars, not 10.  I don't know if that is 3 refilling's and 1 Starship, or 2 refilling's and 1 Starship.  Most likely the total of 4, at best, I think.

I remain optimistic over the long term for Starship like spacecraft.  Knowing one instance where the ship has a fault, is a good thing, this early in the program but at a rather high cost.

A guess I am going to make is that they may have been trying to improve auxiliary thruster method, maybe to deal with the problem of Ullage Gas Method failure in the last flight.

The video try's to be an excessive downer later in its play.  It is not as if we burned 3 people to death as happened in Apollo.  What is the thing to do?  Give up?

Of course not.  China and others will not give up and they know how close SpaceX is.

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Last edited by Void (2025-06-21 10:25:30)


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#2110 2025-06-21 14:35:34

GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...

SpaceX is not anywhere near "as close" as most forums participants seem to think.  They have serious vehicle design problems to solve with the upper stage Starship,  they still have Raptor engine problems to solve (as in pressure/thrust oscillations at a definite infrasound frequency,  hidden in the noise hash,  which can,  and likely did,  excite structural or plumbing organ-pipe modes in the vehicle),  they still have not demonstrated full survivability upon entry,  and they still have not demonstrated how they will land this Starship thing on Earth,  much less the moon and Mars,  where there are no steel decks,  no concrete pads,  and certainly no "chopstick" catch towers.  And a critical enabling item,  if it is ever to be more than just an LEO transport,  is how to refill it on-orbit.  They don't have that either!

Sorry,  but them's the facts!  So says one old retired rocket/ramjet/lots-of-other-things hand.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-06-21 14:38:32)


GW Johnson
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#2111 2025-06-21 16:33:11

Void
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Re: Starship is Go...

Well, I will buy into that.  I have always felt that I am glad that Crew Dragon still exists, and that maybe Dream chaser is moving up the ladder towards eventual crew capability.

We have had a rather good run of luck as far as I am concerned.

If Starship is late in being Moon ready, I guess I have to ask if Blue Origin is Moon ready yet.  Not that I have anything at all against them.  In fact, I am hearing some encouraging things about them.

But the game is cold and brutal.

Beatings are free and often.

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Last edited by Void (2025-06-21 16:35:34)


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#2112 2025-06-22 11:59:04

Oldfart1939
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Re: Starship is Go...

GW--

Here's the latest AngryAstronaut YouTube presentation, which supports your post #2110:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl-GwVM … WL&index=4

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#2113 2025-06-23 09:30:52

RGClark
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Re: Starship is Go...

Repeated engineering failures stem from the top. An analogy, suppose a wealthy businessman started his own civil engineering company and named himself Chief Engineer, despite his background not being engineering.

OK, it’s his company he can name himself anything he wants. But suppose as Chief Engineer he then proceeds to ignore basic principles of civil engineering. Would anyone be surprised if his buildings and bridges fell down?

Why SpaceX needs a True Chief Engineer.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2025/0 … ineer.html

Bob Clark


Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):

      “Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”

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#2114 2025-06-23 09:38:56

GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...

From AIAA’s “Daily Launch” email newsletter for Monday,  6-23-2025:
------   
SpaceX traces Starship test-stand explosion to failure of pressurized nitrogen tank
By Mike Wall published 3 days ago  (on Space.com)
"Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV."

SpaceX thinks it knows why its newest Starship spacecraft went boom this week.

The 171-foot-tall (52-meter-tall) vehicle exploded on a test stand at SpaceX's Starbase site late Wednesday night (June 18) as the company was preparing to ignite its six Raptor engines in a "static fire" trial.

A day later, SpaceX narrowed in on a likely cause.

"Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship's nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing," the company wrote in an update on Thursday (June 19).

"There is no commonality between the COPVs used on Starship and SpaceX's Falcon rockets," the company added. So, launches of the workhorse Falcon 9, which has already flown 75 times in 2025, should not be affected.

The Starship explosion did not cause any reported injuries; all SpaceX personnel at Starbase are safe, according to the update. People living around the site, which is near the border city of Brownsville, shouldn't be worried about contamination from the incident, SpaceX said.

"Previous independent tests conducted on materials inside Starship, including toxicity analyses, confirm they pose no chemical, biological, or toxicological risks," the company wrote. "SpaceX is coordinating with local, state, and federal agencies, as appropriate, on matters concerning environmental and safety impacts."

That said, the explosion did damage the area around the test stand, which is at Starbase's Massey site (not the orbital launch mount area, from which Starship lifts off).

"The explosion ignited several fires at the test site which remains clear of personnel and will be assessed once it has been determined to be safe to approach," SpaceX wrote in the update. "Individuals should not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue."

Wednesday night's explosion occurred during preparations for Starship's 10th flight test, which SpaceX had hoped to launch by the end of the month. (Static fires are common prelaunch tests, performed to ensure that engines are ready to fly.) That timeline will now shift to the right, though it's not clear at the moment by how much.

The incident was the latest in a series of setbacks for Starship upper stages. SpaceX lost the vehicle — also known as Ship — on the last three Starship flight tests, which launched in January, March and May of this year.

Starship's first stage, called Super Heavy, has a better track record of late. For example, on Flight 7 and Flight 8, the huge booster successfully returned to Starbase, where it was caught by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms as planned.

------   

My take:  if the description “in the nosecone” for the location of the COPV is correct,  then it is located very close to the oxygen header tank (as the version 1 with 1200 metric tons propellant capacity was laid out),  which is also in the nose of the vehicle,  ahead of the “cargo bay” area.  Such a COPV explosion would easily rupture that oxygen header tank.  Compressed gases drive great explosive violence (with shrapnel) when such vessels burst. 

There would seem to be an oxygen header tank transfer piping line down the windward “belly” of the cargo bay section,  based on descriptions I have read.  In the explosion slow-motion video,  the cargo bay splits open through its heat shield,  right where that transfer line supposedly is,  with gush of something white (not fire) bursting through,  followed immediately by an explosion engulfing about the top half of the vehicle,  and a second or so later by a second explosion seemingly centered lower down.   

The main propellant tanks below the cargo bay would be the main methane tank forward,  with the methane header tank located inside,  at the base of that tank,  and finally the main oxygen tank,  just ahead of the engine bay.  The upgraded version 2 has a bigger propellant capacity,  but should be laid out similarly.   

I would hazard the guess that the COPV explosion and bursting oxygen header tank somehow put a large force on the transfer line,  which split open the belly at the cargo bay,  allowing liquid (and vapor) oxygen out through that split,  as well as releasing a few tons of liquid oxygen to fall down on top of the main methane tank. 

My guess is that spilled header oxygen and vented methane vapors are much of the first explosion.  Bear in mind that the impact of a few tons of liquid oxygen on the top of the main methane tank would rupture it as well,  adding some fuel to that first explosion pulse.  That first explosion pulse would massively rupture the main methane tank,  and also likely the main oxygen tank below it.  That’s the second pulse of the explosion,  which was larger and longer,  reflecting the larger mass of reactants. 

All of that scenario is just an educated guess on my part. 

As for the nitrogen tank,  said to be a “COPV”,  or “composite overwrapped pressure vessel”,  maybe that is not the right choice this early in the flight test program.  Such a design is a metal shell that is simply too thin to hold the pressure,  overwrapped by a yarn or fabric-reinforced composite material,  to bring it up to strength at a lighter weight. 

Here’s the problem:  no composite material has a large plastic (post-yield) strain capability.  If the COPV over-pressures for any reason whatsoever,  failure will be sudden,  without any warning!  Maybe a heavier all-metal nitrogen tank,  one with much more plastic strain capability,  would be a better choice until the other bugs all get worked out.  At least you could see it stretch before it explodes.  You do not want to fly even experimentally,  with too many possible failure modes! 

Lots of things look good “on paper”,  but there are a lot of other things to worry about,  many of which cannot be put on that paper.  This is where the “older hands”,  with many years of school-of-hard-knocks experiences,  can be effectively very much wiser than youngsters fresh out of school.  SpaceX has no “old hands” on its staff:  they hire no one over about age 40 or 45.  There’s no gray heads visible anywhere in that organization.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2025-06-23 09:42:22)


GW Johnson
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#2115 2025-06-23 18:37:05

SpaceNut
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Re: Starship is Go...

Sounds similar to the helium tank issue that they had.

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#2116 Yesterday 18:48:12

RGClark
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Re: Starship is Go...

“Angry Astronaut” had been a strong propellant of the Starship for a Moon mission. Now, he no longer believes it can perform that role. He discusses an alternative architecture for the Artemis missions that uses the Starship only as a heavy cargo lifter to LEO, never being used itself as a lander. In this case it would carry the lunar lander to orbit to link up with the Orion capsule launched by the SLS:

Face facts! Starship will never get humans to the Moon! BUT it can do the next best thing!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vl-GwVM4HuE

That alternative architecture is describes here:

Op-Ed: How NASA Could Still Land Astronauts on the Moon by 2029.
by Alex Longo
New-Houbolt-Architecture-1-2048x1536.jpg
This figure provides an overview of a simplified, two-launch lunar architecture which leverages commercial hardware to land astronauts on the Moon by 2029. Credit: AmericaSpace.
https://www.americaspace.com/2025/06/09 … n-by-2029/

Bob Clark

Last edited by RGClark (Yesterday 18:50:30)


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      “Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”

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#2117 Yesterday 22:06:18

Void
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Re: Starship is Go...

I feel that I am violating my Peter Principal level to post here, but I do have some thoughts to say.

The COPV problem that is thought to have triggered the explosion, has to be fixed, even if SpaceX were to go to an expendable 2nd stage.  One though I have seen is to go to metal tanks that are more reliable, but heavier.  The Starship is said to be expanding it's payload capability so metal tanks might be sensible as perhaps the extra weight can be justified.

We also have to consider that their may be industrial espionage going on at this time.  It is not the greatest probability but it is possible.  Any number of entities around the world could have reason.

And Elon Musk got a lot of hate.  Old space loves these resets, where all the sudden the plans are changed.  Since the space shuttle, this has happened at least twice?  The reset then sets the table with more pork for the piggies.

The saying that 11 refilling's are needed may not be true.  I have recently seen mention of 3 refilling's as the power of the Superheavy and Starship are being expanded.

Even though I think those things, I actually am attracted to what the Angry Astronaut, suggests, at least in part.  But if they are doing test missions, there is no reason not to test heat shield methods.  We are not yet at the point of serious lifting of mass to LEO for a mission.  The Heat Shield although not properly reusable, does seem to allow the ships to "land" if they make it to sub-orbit properly.

I understand that the system is now expected to be able to lift 200 tons to orbit.  Or at least that is said.  The raptor 3's are supposed to have more lift, and the hot staging method now is said to provide more payload capacity.

Until a need for disposable Starships arises such as a mission to the Moon, there is no particular reason to stop testing the full Starship, because they are not even getting serious about deploying Star links yet, just dummy units.

But I do support the idea of an "Expendable" upper stage Starship.  For now it could be disposed of in the pacific, but in the future I would think it should be repurposed in an orbit of some kind.

And so I do support the sort of thing that the Angry Astronaut has suggested or spoken of with various space vendors being employed to provide a collection of talents.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (Yesterday 22:20:43)


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#2118 Today 12:34:23

Void
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Re: Starship is Go...

Well, we know that Starships can blow up and take test equipment with them.  If it was all taxpayer money, as per NASA, there would be major concerns.

However this video might encourage people due to the amount of revenues that SpaceX appears to be able to tap into: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … a22af4dfe6  Quote:

SpaceX Value - Starlink & Mars - Kardashev?
YouTube
Warren Redlich
2 views

I will suggest yet another thing, Platinum family metals on the Moon: https://dnyuz.com/2025/06/15/is-there-a … -the-moon/  Quote:

Is There a Trillion Dollars’ Worth of Platinum on the Moon?
June 15, 2025 in News

So, if you could perfect Starship, enough that it will generally not explode during a mission, and if the refilling's are to be 3 for a mission to the Moon, delivering processing equipment to the Moon would be very valuable.

Then you would not need that big of a ship to bring the platnum family metals back to Earth.

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Last edited by Void (Today 12:53:05)


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#2119 Today 13:02:54

GW Johnson
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Re: Starship is Go...

Just remember,  when in development flight tests,  projected operational payload capacity figures to LEO are speculative guesses,  spelled "BS".  Once this vehicle starts making survivable landings from orbit,  we'll have a better idea what that payload might really be.  They have a lot of changes to make yet,  to solve a lot of fatal problems they still face.  And nobody yet knows what those changes really are.

As a first guess toward tanker flights to effect a full Starship refill on orbit,  you need the tank capacity,  and the mass of propellant deliverable as payload on-orbit.  Starship v.1 had 1200 metric ton propellant capacity.  If its operational deliverable propellant payload was 200 metric tons,  it would take 1200/200 = 6 tanker flights.  If its deliverable propellant is 150 tons,  it would take 1200/150 = 8 tanker flights.  If its deliverable propellant were 100 tons,  it would take 1200/100 = 12 tanker flights.  Simple as that! 

Starship v.2 has 1300-something tons of propellant capacity.  Maybe.  We'll see how it really changes in order to survive a test flight.  It'll take more tanker flights,  at the bigger capacity,  presuming the same range of payload figures.  And to go to the moon or anywhere else outside LEO,  you need to do a full refill on-orbit!

as for the alternate lander and mission:

The alternate mission profile makes good sense to me,  except that whoever created that illustration still calls out that crazy lunar halo orbit.  It is pretty clear there is not going to be a Gateway station,  so why retain an orbit that adds 50% or more to the propellant capacity needed of the lander? (***) If instead you do a relatively low orbit,  you can carry more lander payload if you need less lander propellant.  But beware,  your lander is not reusable unless it is 1-stage,  and it is refilled on-orbit about the moon. 

*** Answer:  SLS/Orion using the interim upper stage cannot send an Orion into low lunar orbit and still get back out to come home.  Orion's service module is too small for a capsule that size.  You do have a bigger dV getting into low lunar orbit compared to that crazy halo with its periapsis so high above the moon.  Earlier mistaken decisions do have a habit of coming back later,  to bite you in the rear,  do they not?

answer to that *** answer:  Delete SLS/Orion as too expensive and too incapable.  Do it instead with a Dragon atop a Falcon-Heavy,  plus another unladen Falcon-9.  Dragon's good for 2 weeks life support,  all you need for this.  Dock the unladen Falcon-9 upper stage (which has the most unused propellant aboard) to the nose of the Dragon,  and use that for trans-lunar injection.  Use the Falcon-Heavy upper stage for the return to Earth.  You should be able to accomplish that from LLO,  not that crazy halo.   

Use the extra tank volume left over in the lander that was designed for the higher 2-way dV,  for getting into LLO instead of the halo orbit.  Then you can still carry more payload than you previously thought to the moon,  because the propellant you still have is more than enough for the lower dV requirement.  You set your LLO altitude just high enough to make this work,  but nowhere near as high as that 3000 km periapsis of that crazy halo.

BTW,  that crazy halo was unstable:  it had a 70,000 km apoapsis,  when the stability limit Hill sphere radius was only 60,000 km.  That's what drove periapsis speed to only a snit lower than lunar escape.  In turn driving up the 2-way dV requirement to land by more than 50%.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (Today 13:32:49)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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